5 ms·

More confusion - Emmett Shear is a close friend of Sam Altman. He was part of the original 2005 YCombinator class alongside Altman, part of the justin.tv mafia

More confusion - Emmett Shear is a close friend of Sam Altman. He was part of the original 2005 YCombinator class alongside Altman, part of the justin.tv mafia, and later a part-time partner at YCombinator. I don't think he has any such close ties to Dustin Moskovitz. Why would the Dustin-leaning OpenAI board install him as interim CEO? This whole thing still seems to have the air of a pageant to me, where they're making a big stink for drama but it might be manufactured by all of the original board, with Sam, Ilya, Adam, and potentially others all on the same side.

alephnerd 3y ago
He's part of the EA community which Moskovitz funded. He was even named in Yudkowsky's warcrime of a Harry Potter fanfic [0][1] [0] - https://www.404media.co/new-openai-ceo-emmett-shear-was-minor-character-in-hpmor-harry-potter-ai-fanfic/?ref=upstract.com https://www.404media.co/new-openai-ceo-emmett-shear-was-mino... [1] - https://hpmor.com/chapter/104?ref=404media.co https://hpmor.com/chapter/104?ref=404media.co
- dymk 3y ago
  Silicon Valley lore is way too complex at this point; needs a reboot. I'd rather start One Piece from scratch.
  - chucke1992 3y ago
    We need a wiki indeed.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      You're posting on it.
    - layer8 3y ago
      https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/ https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/ is already taken, unfortunately.
- wirelesspotat 3y ago
  Why is Yudkowsky's HPMOR a "warcrime"?
  - homefree 3y ago
    It's great - there's just a group on HN that think it's status-y to hate on it.
    - jychang 3y ago
      Ehhhh it was fine when I read it as a teenager but the writing quality alone (ignoring the content) certainly did not age well decade+ later
  - Tenoke 3y ago
    I find it really good but if you don't like rationality/EY it's really easy to latch on as something to hate (overly smart fanfic does sound cringe on the face of it).
    - madeofpalk 3y ago
      Also it's a Harry Potter fanfic. That they paid $28k to distribute to others.
      - Tenoke 3y ago
        I'm sure the return on that investment was very large in terms of donations.
tedmiston 3y ago
> More confusion - Emmett Shear is a close friend of Sam Altman. He was part of the original 2005 YCombinator class alongside Altman, part of the justin.tv mafia, and later a part-time partner at YCombinator. ... Why would the Dustin-leaning OpenAI board install him as interim CEO? This was my first thought too: Is this a concession of the board to install a Sam friendly-ish Interim CEO? It reads weird on paper.
- tukajo 3y ago
  Is Emmett Shear really "friends" with Sam Altman? He (Emmett) literally liked a tweet the other day that said something to the effect of: "Congratulations to Ilya on reclaiming the corporation that Sam Altman stole". I'm paraphrasing here, but I don't think Emmett and Sam are friends?
  - ec109685 3y ago
    https://x.com/moridinamael/status/1725893666663768321?s=46 https://x.com/moridinamael/status/1725893666663768321?s=46
piuantiderp 3y ago
Could be a way to get a clean break and go full MSFT.
i_have_an_idea 3y ago
> part of the justin.tv mafia Side question, but why is that a "mafia". Is any tech entrepreneur starting a 2nd company after having one mildly successful exit now a "mafia" move? Soon enough, I will probably read about the "skibidi toilet mafia" on this site..
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Back in the early 2000s, the PayPal founders were from a handful of universities (UIUC, Stanford) and had a massive alumni network from those two programs. This was called the PayPal Mafia [0] To this day, the any tight collection/network of founders from the same organization is called a "Mafia" [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia
- nostrademons 3y ago
  In startup culture, it usually refers to a group of individuals who underwent a formative experience in one company, then went on to start separate individual companies where they all cross-invest, cross-advise, and generally help out each others' companies. Term was originally used to refer to the PayPal mafia [1, notable members include Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elon Musk, Chad Hurley, Reid Hoffman, Jeremy Stoppelman, Yishan Wong, notable descendants include SpaceX, Tesla, YouTube, Yelp, LinkedIn, and arguably Facebook]. Since expanded to the justin.tv mafia [2, members = Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Kyle Vogt, and Michael Seibel, descendants include Twitch & Cruise]. Arguably the Fairchildren (descendants of Fairchild Semiconductors - Intel, AMD, National Semiconductor Kleiner-Perkins, Sequoia Capital, and by extension Apple, Google, Cisco, Netscape, etc.) and the descendants of General Magic (E-bay, Android, iPod/iPhone, Nest, WebTV, and the United States Digital Service) could also be termed "mafias", although the aren't usually referred to as such. It's not just starting a second company - it's that a group of people who were all bound together by one company end up starting second companies, and they continue to go on to help each other and collaborate in their later ventures. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia

alephnerd 3y ago

He's part of the EA community which Moskovitz funded. He was even named in Yudkowsky's warcrime of a Harry Potter fanfic [0][1] [0] - https://www.404media.co/new-openai-ceo-emmett-shear-was-minor-character-in-hpmor-harry-potter-ai-fanfic/?ref=upstract.com https://www.404media.co/new-openai-ceo-emmett-shear-was-mino... [1] - https://hpmor.com/chapter/104?ref=404media.co https://hpmor.com/chapter/104?ref=404media.co

dymk 3y ago
Silicon Valley lore is way too complex at this point; needs a reboot. I'd rather start One Piece from scratch.
- chucke1992 3y ago
  We need a wiki indeed.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    You're posting on it.
  - layer8 3y ago
    https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/ https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/ is already taken, unfortunately.
wirelesspotat 3y ago
Why is Yudkowsky's HPMOR a "warcrime"?
- homefree 3y ago
  It's great - there's just a group on HN that think it's status-y to hate on it.
  - jychang 3y ago
    Ehhhh it was fine when I read it as a teenager but the writing quality alone (ignoring the content) certainly did not age well decade+ later
- Tenoke 3y ago
  I find it really good but if you don't like rationality/EY it's really easy to latch on as something to hate (overly smart fanfic does sound cringe on the face of it).
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    Also it's a Harry Potter fanfic. That they paid $28k to distribute to others.
    - Tenoke 3y ago
      I'm sure the return on that investment was very large in terms of donations.

tedmiston 3y ago

> More confusion - Emmett Shear is a close friend of Sam Altman. He was part of the original 2005 YCombinator class alongside Altman, part of the justin.tv mafia, and later a part-time partner at YCombinator. ... Why would the Dustin-leaning OpenAI board install him as interim CEO? This was my first thought too: Is this a concession of the board to install a Sam friendly-ish Interim CEO? It reads weird on paper.

tukajo 3y ago
Is Emmett Shear really "friends" with Sam Altman? He (Emmett) literally liked a tweet the other day that said something to the effect of: "Congratulations to Ilya on reclaiming the corporation that Sam Altman stole". I'm paraphrasing here, but I don't think Emmett and Sam are friends?
- ec109685 3y ago
  https://x.com/moridinamael/status/1725893666663768321?s=46 https://x.com/moridinamael/status/1725893666663768321?s=46

piuantiderp 3y ago

Could be a way to get a clean break and go full MSFT.

i_have_an_idea 3y ago

> part of the justin.tv mafia Side question, but why is that a "mafia". Is any tech entrepreneur starting a 2nd company after having one mildly successful exit now a "mafia" move? Soon enough, I will probably read about the "skibidi toilet mafia" on this site..

alephnerd 3y ago
Back in the early 2000s, the PayPal founders were from a handful of universities (UIUC, Stanford) and had a massive alumni network from those two programs. This was called the PayPal Mafia [0] To this day, the any tight collection/network of founders from the same organization is called a "Mafia" [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia
nostrademons 3y ago
In startup culture, it usually refers to a group of individuals who underwent a formative experience in one company, then went on to start separate individual companies where they all cross-invest, cross-advise, and generally help out each others' companies. Term was originally used to refer to the PayPal mafia [1, notable members include Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elon Musk, Chad Hurley, Reid Hoffman, Jeremy Stoppelman, Yishan Wong, notable descendants include SpaceX, Tesla, YouTube, Yelp, LinkedIn, and arguably Facebook]. Since expanded to the justin.tv mafia [2, members = Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Kyle Vogt, and Michael Seibel, descendants include Twitch & Cruise]. Arguably the Fairchildren (descendants of Fairchild Semiconductors - Intel, AMD, National Semiconductor Kleiner-Perkins, Sequoia Capital, and by extension Apple, Google, Cisco, Netscape, etc.) and the descendants of General Magic (E-bay, Android, iPod/iPhone, Nest, WebTV, and the United States Digital Service) could also be termed "mafias", although the aren't usually referred to as such. It's not just starting a second company - it's that a group of people who were all bound together by one company end up starting second companies, and they continue to go on to help each other and collaborate in their later ventures. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia